TVA BABY and Other Stories Read Online Free PDF Page B

glow.

    Eula-Cam
.
    I scrolled through her Free Stills until I was gone. She was on the couch, alone, in bra and panties, putting on lipstick. The label said Deep Rose.
    I clicked. She was reaching behind her back with long fingers to unhook her bra.
    I clicked again and I was at the end of the Free Stills. END USER LICENSE AGREEMENT.
    I almost clicked on I AGREE. Then I thought of the seven thousand other guys. She was taking it off for them.
    I was beginning to hate them, every one. * * *
    The next day she was late, for the first time. “Where you been?”
    “A girl likes to shop,” she said.
    “On the house,” said Lou, setting down two glasses, one white, one red.
    “Down to seven,” she said, checking out my Fauxlex as I lit her Camel. “They’re jumping ship. And yet, you’re back.”
    “They’re a fickle bunch,” I said. “They like excitement. Nudity. Nipples at least.”
    “And you don’t?”
    “I’m a romantic, remember? Intimacy’s my thing.”
    “Hard candy’s mine,” she said, puckering her lips. “That’s what I was shopping for.”
    I followed her upstairs. She folded her Burberry over the chair and let me watch her walk across the room in bra and panties. It was a different bra. I could see her nipples through it.
    Round little shadows. “Doesn’t count,” she said, looking down approvingly. “As long as they’re covered.”
    “Protocols,” I said. Her panties were sheer too, except for the little triangle that barely covered her pubic hair. Even with just eight clients—no, nine—I was glowing like a stove.
    “Now they’re back,” she said, leaning over me to glance at my Fauxlex. “What is it with you guys and panties, anyway?” She sat down on the couch with her feet pulled up underneath her and her knees just slightly apart.
    “Honey, do you have to ask?” I thought that was clever.
    Instead of answering, she closed her eyes and leaned way back.
    “It’s the little triangle,” I said. White silk, or something very like it, pulled tight between her thighs. “It’s like the pubic hair I’m not allowed to see. It says,
Here.”
    “Well said,” she said, lifting one leg and hugging her knee to her breast. The triangle narrowed to a soft white lane that led down out of sight. The silk road.
    Her eyes were closed. Mine were wide. I felt a glow.
    “They present. Like the brassiere, they display what they conceal,” I said. “There’s a certain intimacy in the presentation.”
    “And in the regard as well,” she said, her eyes still closed.
    I supposed I should be flattered.
    “Indeed, you should,” she said. She opened her eyes and reached out for a Camel, carefully, and we shared the wine and talked of cabbages and kings.
    The silk road faded in the failing light.
    At five she showed me out, and I felt my clients fleeing. All but one. He stayed with me till six, and so did the glow.

    Eula Cam
.
    I clicked through Free Stills, and there she was in bra and panties, seeing me out. Closing the door with the fingertips I had never touched.
    I could almost hear her saying, “Tomorrow, then?”
    Tomorrow, then.
    I clicked again and those same fingertips were inside the waistband of her panties, about to slip them down.
    I clicked again and the EULA filled the screen.
    I wasn’t even tempted to click on
I Agree
. It wasn’t what I wanted.
    I clicked BACK until I found her putting on her lipstick.
    Deep Rose.
    I left it there. What I wanted was to read her lips with mine. * * *
    “What’s with the hard candy,” I said. “Are you trying to quit smoking?”
    “Hardly.” She reached for my Camels, tapping the pack on the bar. “A girl likes to have something to suck.”
    “Sorry, guys,” said Lou. “I got a complaint. You’ll have to take the cigarettes outside.”
    “We have to talk,” I said, outside. “I’m thinking of quitting my job.”
    “I’ve been thinking too,” she said, in the elevator, looking up at me. I leaned over to kiss her but she